Researchers study how lifelong environmentalists want their remains handled after death

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uok-rsh020921.php

 

News Release 9-Feb-2021
University of Kansas

 

Traditional burial in a graveyard has environmental costs. Graves can take up valuable land, leak embalming chemicals and involve nonbiodegradable materials like concrete, as well as the plastic and steel that make up many caskets. But the other mainstream option -- cremation -- releases dangerous chemicals and greenhouse gasses into the environment.

So, what's an environmentalist to do when making plans for the end of life?

A new study from the University of Kansas in the journal Mortality details how older environmentalists consider death care and how likely they are to choose "green" burials and other eco-friendly options.


•••••

"We were really surprised to see both answers -- that yes, they're planning on green burial, and no, it's not even on their radar," Stock said. "We were often the ones introducing these people that are so knowledgeable in so many areas of the environment and activism to green burial. We would ask them, 'Do you want your body to be buried in a green burial?' And many would say, 'I don't know what that is, can you tell me about it?'"

The researchers said awareness of green burials -- where a body is placed into the soil to facilitate decomposition without durable caskets or concrete chambers -- is growing for some older people. But the practice of green burial remains clouded by a funeral industry looking to make profits, and it can be influenced by considerations of family, religious and cultural traditions, as well as the practices of institutions like the military that carry out funerals.

"The business of burial has shaped all of our ideas about how we can be buried," Dennis said. "A lot of participants said they weren't aware of green burial. We're sort of presented with two choices -- you're going to be put in the cemetery or cremated. Then, we start expanding to other options, but that's only been in recent times. You see some of their desires, like, 'I want to be put out on the land.' Or you see in some of our green-burial narratives where people took it into their own hands. But you have to have be empowered to go against the grain, so I think for a lot of us we didn't even know a green burial was possible, and pushback from society, capitalism and the funeral industry has created a situation where we don't even know the possibilities -- some of the environmentalists in our study didn't know there were laws that say they can be buried on their own land."

•••••

The investigators predicted that as green burials gain in popularity, more options for green disposal of bodies will become commonly available, even ones that today seem eccentric.

"The mushroom suit -- when we talk about that with our undergrads they're usually sort of puzzled and intrigued," Dennis said. "People wonder, 'How does that work?" But it's an interesting one. Basically, you're wrapped in material and then mushrooms grow out of you, and it cleans the toxins. There's going to be more new and awesome ways to be buried that we haven't even heard of yet."

A Disillusioned ExxonMobil Engineer Quits to Take Action on Climate Change and Stop ‘Making the World Worse’

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08022021/a-disillusioned-exxonmobil-engineer-quits-to-take-action-on-climate-change-and-stop-making-the-world-worse/

 

By Nicholas Kusnetz
February 8, 2021

For 16 years, Dar-Lon Chang worked as an engineer at ExxonMobil. Fresh out of graduate school, he was by all accounts exactly the type of person the company is known for hiring: smart, driven, diligent.

•••••

He’d had an interest in alternative energy since his college days, and thought science and technology would blaze a path towards a future without fossil fuels. Exxon, he believed, could help lead the way. When he could, Chang tried to nudge the company along in small ways, holding out the hope that change would come.

•••••

But with each passing year, Chang watched the climate crisis grow more urgent, while the company he had devoted his career to only deepened its commitment to oil and gas. Eventually, he became disillusioned.

So in 2019, without any prospect of future employment, he resigned, packed up with his wife and daughter, who had known no home other than Houston, and moved to a net-zero community outside Denver built around environmentally-conscious living.

•••••

“I didn’t want the rest of my career to be wasted on something that I felt was making the world worse, when there was all the possibility to make things better,” he said recently.

•••••

Exxon has become the corporate embodiment of the industry’s intransigence. It has remained committed to a future of expanding oil and gas production and was the last of the major multinational oil companies to adopt corporate-wide emissions reduction targets, announcing the pledge only in December. And while the company’s finances have crumbled in recent years, it remains by some metrics the largest of the Western investor-owned oil companies.

There is no evidence of any formal movement within Exxon’s ranks agitating for change. But Inside Climate News spoke with people who have worked at Exxon who expressed views similar to Chang’s.

One worker, who asked not to be named because she was not authorized to speak to the media, described a generational schism, saying she guessed that most employees under the age of 50 thought climate change was a serious issue. She recently left the company.

•••••

One of the greatest appeals of a career at Exxon, Chang said, was the chance to work on a diverse range of projects that could help supply the world with energy. But as the climate crisis grew more dire, he said, the company’s management showed no interest and resisted calls to move into lower-carbon products.

•••••

In 2018, Chang said, it became clear that the performance ranking system would remain the same. That fall, Chang’s daughter came home from school one day to report that her teacher had told the class she wanted to teach about climate change but was forbidden from doing so. “That kind of tipped me over the edge,” Chang said, “that I can’t let my daughter continue to grow up in this environment.”

•••••

 But Coffin said people also found themselves caught between a career that prepared them only for oil and gas and their growing concerns about climate change. “People feel trapped,” he said, “because they have on the one hand a well paying job, and the mortgage and the family that they need to support, but on the other hand they have a personal ethical dilemma about working for an oil and gas company.”

A recent global survey of oil and gas workers found that only slightly more than half the respondents would choose to join the industry if they were entering the workforce now. A similar number said they would consider switching to the renewable energy sector.

•••••

September. Chang said he’s been surprised by how difficult it’s been for someone with a Ph.D. in engineering, and a decade-and-a-half experience at one of the world’s top oil companies, to find employment helping to build clean energy.

“There are a lot of folks who would be happy to move from the oil and gas industry to renewables if there were enough opportunities, if they could make the switch relatively easily,” he said. “It’s very difficult, so something has to change along those lines if you want to have more people speak up and if you want to have more engineers be able to bring their skills to fight climate change.”

•••••

 

Is the universe expanding at an increasing rate?

Feb. 9, 2021

The data of the red shift of stars farther away supposedly shows them accelerating faster than closer objects, based on a larger red shift.  I have two questions about this.

1.  We are seeing those that are farther away longer ago in time.  So maybe they are slower now.  Why doesn't a bigger red shift farther back in time indicate the expansion of the universe is slowing down, not speeding up?

2.  The farther away they are, the more matter that photons pass near, leading to an increased red shift.  With the evidence of a lot of matter that we can't directly detect (dark matter, which might be ordinary matter), that would cause more red shift, making for an appearance of higher speed than really is the case.

WVU biologists uncover forests' unexpected role in climate change

So if we have fewer trees, greenhouse gases can be expected to increase even faster.

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/wvu-wbu020821.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
West Virginia University

 

New research from West Virginia University biologists shows that trees around the world are consuming more carbon dioxide than previously reported, making forests even more important in regulating the Earth's atmosphere and forever shift how we think about climate change.

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Richard Thomas and alumnus Justin Mathias (BS Biology, '13 and Ph.D. Biology, '20) synthesized published tree ring studies. They found that increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century have caused an uptick in trees' water-use efficiency, the ratio of carbon dioxide taken up by photosynthesis to the water lost by transpiration - the act of trees "breathing out" water vapor.


•••••

High blood pressure causes atrial fibrillation

  https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/esoc-hbp020521.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
European Society of Cardiology

 

The first evidence from genetic data that high blood pressure is causally associated with the most common heart rhythm disorder is published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology (ESC).1


•••••

Obesity: Sensitivity to sweet taste predicts weight loss from surgery

 

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/ccft-ost_1020521.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown

 

A study led by scientists from the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, in Lisbon, concludes that bariatric surgery - that is, procedures used to treat severe obesity by reconfiguring the gastrointestinal tract -, leads to greater weight loss in patients who, before the surgery, had a heightened perception of sweetness.

Although bariatric surgery is the most effective treatment for severe obesity, the outcome of the procedure in terms of weight loss varies significantly from patient to patient. Thus, understanding why some patients benefit more than others from bariatric surgery may be paramount to estimate what to expect from the surgery for a given patient - and ultimately, to decide whether to perform it at all on that patient.


•••••

Higher blood pressure at night than in daytime may increase Alzheimer's disease risk

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uu-hbp020521.php

News Release 8-Feb-2021
Uppsala University

Higher blood pressure at night than in daytime may be a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease in older men. This is suggested by a new study from researchers at Uppsala University, now published in the journal Hypertension.

'Dementia' is an umbrella term used to describe a category of symptoms marked by behavioural changes and gradually declining cognitive and social abilities. Numerous factors, including hypertension (high blood pressure), affect the risk of developing these symptoms.

Under healthy conditions, blood pressure (BP) varies over 24 hours, with lowest values reached at night. Doctors call this nocturnal blood pressure fall 'dipping'. However, in some people, this BP pattern is reversed: their nocturnal BP is higher than in daytime. This blood pressure profile is known as 'reverse dipping'.

"The night is a critical period for brain health. For example, in animals, it has previously been shown that the brain clears out waste products during sleep, and that this clearance is compromised by abnormal blood pressure patterns. Since the night also represents a critical time window for human brain health, we examined whether too high blood pressure at night, as seen in reverse dipping, is associated with a higher dementia risk in older men," says Christian Benedict, Associate Professor at Uppsala University's Department of Neuroscience, and senior author of the study. 

•••••

"The risk of getting a dementia diagnosis was 1.64 times higher among men with reverse dipping compared to those with normal dipping. Reverse dipping mainly increased the risk of Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia," says Xiao Tan, postdoctoral fellow from the same department and first author of this research.

"Our cohort consisted only of older men. Thus, our results need to be replicated in older women," concludes Benedict.

•••••

 

Higher blood pressure over life span increases congestive heart failure risk in Black people

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/mcog-hbp020521.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021

Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University

 

 Starting with early childhood, otherwise healthy Black people show signs of slightly diminished heart muscle strength and a slightly higher blood pressure than their white counterparts, factors which may put them on a course for early development of congestive heart failure, researchers report.

The take-home message for parents and physicians is that, particularly for populations at high cardiovascular risk such as Black people, a close check should be kept on blood pressure starting in early adolescence, says the corresponding author of the study in Journal of the American Heart Association.

•••••

Use of goldenseal may compromise glucose control in diabetics on metformin

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/wsu-uog020521.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
Washington State UniversityNews
 

Diabetic patients taking the natural product goldenseal while taking the prescription drug metformin may be unwittingly sabotaging their efforts to maintain healthy blood glucose levels. This concern arose from a recent study published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

Metformin--the world's most-prescribed oral glucose-lowering medication--was included in a cocktail of selected drugs given to participants in a clinical study led by scientists at Washington State University's College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The study sought to determine the impact of goldenseal on specific drug transporters, proteins that facilitate absorption or expulsion of drug molecules in different tissues such as the intestine, liver and kidney.

"After six days of taking goldenseal, participants had about 25 percent less metformin in their bodies, a statistically significant change that could potentially impact glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes," said the study's first author James Nguyen, a Ph.D. candidate in pharmaceutical sciences and recent Doctor of Pharmacy graduate. He said the finding serves as a caution to health care providers and patients that over-the-counter natural product use can lead to unwanted drug interactions, which may lead to negative health outcomes. 

•••••

Can the brain resist the group opinion?

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/nruh-ct020621.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
National Research University Higher School of Economics

 

Scientists at HSE University have learned that disagreeing with the opinion of other people leaves a 'trace' in brain activity, which allows the brain to later adjust its opinion in favour of the majority-held point of view. The article was published in Scientific Reports.

We often change our beliefs under the influence of others. This social behavior is called conformity and explains varios components of our behaviour, from voting at elections to fashion trends among teenagers.

Brain research has recently well informed about short-term effects of social influence on decision making. If our choice coincides with the point of view of the people who are important to us, this decision is reinforced in the brain's "pleasure" centres involved in the larger dopaminergic system responsible for learning, motor activity and many other functions. Conversely, in instances of disagreement with others, the brain signals that a 'mistake' has been made and triggers conformity.


•••••

Study identifies 'post-traumatic growth' emerging from COVID-19 lockdowns

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uob-si020821.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
University of Bath project
University of Bath

 

Results from a new study which draws on survey data collected during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic suggests that being forced to slow down life, as a consequence of lockdown, has had significant, positive impacts for many people and their families.

•••••

This cohort had experienced considerable adversity because of COVID-19. 70% were working exclusively from home, almost half reported a reduction in income and nearly all children (93%) were being home schooled at the time. In addition, one in five identified at least one family member who was suspected or had been infected with COVID-19.

Yet despite all this, when asked the question - "Do you think there are any positive to come out of this pandemic and of the social distancing restrictions?" - 88% of respondents said 'yes'. 

Their responses fell into four key areas, which the researchers describe collectively as examples of 'post-traumatic growth' - whereby individuals experience positive effects following stressful or traumatic events:

    48% described a growth in family relationships. One participant explained how the lockdown had brought "closer relationships and a better understanding of each other." Carers also positively reported spending more time together as a family, had more involvement in their children's lives, and felt closer, whilst also feeling more connected to other family members.

    22% described feeling a greater appreciation for life, involving the re-assessment of their personal values and priorities and the opportunity to 'reconsider what's really important'. This included increased appreciation and gratitude for the simpler things in life, with opportunities for 'reconnection with small pleasures' and less consumerism and reliance on material things. It also involved the adoption of a healthier lifestyle (22%) because 'life has slowed down', resulting in less stress and 'an opportunity to enjoy the garden and the quiet of the day.'

    16% described spiritual growth, which involved a greater engagement with fundamental, existential issues. This included a greater appreciation for others (in particular health and essential workers), a 'stronger sense of community' and an 'acknowledgement of inequalities' (in particular outdoor space). It also included environmental benefits through 'less car use' creating less air pollution, which was 'better for the environment'.

    11% described discovering and embracing new opportunities and possibilities, which was reflected in comments about changes in working practice, involving positive 'changes in attitudes to home working' and the adoption of a 'better work/life balance'. It was also reflected through opportunities to learn or develop new skills, particularly 'acquiring new technology-related competencies.' These were highlighted as particularly important by carers as they increasingly relied on technology for work, educating their children and socialising. Others described the positive opportunity to home educate their children, with one carer reporting: "I have always wanted to home school but cannot afford to...this has been a wonderful experience."


•••••

New research finds caffeine consumed during pregnancy can change important brain pathways in baby

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uorm-bcb020821.php

 

News Release 8-Feb-2021
University of Rochester Medical Center

 

New research finds caffeine consumed during pregnancy can change important brain pathways that could lead to behavioral problems later in life. Researchers in the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) analyzed thousands of brain scans of nine and ten-year-olds, and revealed changes in the brain structure in children who were exposed to caffeine in utero.

"These are sort of small effects and it's not causing horrendous psychiatric conditions, but it is causing minimal but noticeable behavioral issues that should make us consider long term effects of caffeine intake during pregnancy," said John Foxe, Ph.D., director of the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, and principal investigator of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development or ABCD Study at the University of Rochester. "I suppose the outcome of this study will be a recommendation that any caffeine during pregnancy is probably not such a good idea."

Elevated behavioral issues, attention difficulties, and hyperactivity are all symptoms that researchers observed in these children. "What makes this unique is that we have a biological pathway that looks different when you consume caffeine through pregnancy," said Zachary Christensen, a M.D/Ph.D. candidate in the Medical Science Training Program and first author on the paper published in the journal Neuropharmacology. "Previous studies have shown that children perform differently on IQ tests, or they have different psychopathology, but that could also be related to demographics, so it's hard to parse that out until you have something like a biomarker. This gives us a place to start future research to try to learn exactly when the change is occurring in the brain."

Investigators analyzed brain scans of more than 9,000 nine and ten-year-old participants in the ABCD study. They found clear changes in how the white matter tracks - which form connections between brain regions - were organized in children whose mothers reported they consumed caffeine during pregnancy.


•••••

Climate change exacerbating pollen season

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/537912-study-climate-change-exacerbating-pollen-season

By John Bowden - 02/08/21 07:01 PM EST

Pollen season is becoming longer, earlier and more intense as a result of a changing climate, a study published Monday in a journal from the National Academy of Sciences finds.

Scientists at several universities led by William Anderegg at Rutgers examined data from pollen measurements dating between 1990 and 2018, and discovered that pollen season increased by 20 days over that time period, while the amount of pollen in the air grew by 21 percent.

"We find widespread advances and lengthening of pollen seasons (+20 d) and increases in pollen concentrations (+21%) across North America, which are strongly coupled to observed warming," reads the study's abstract. "Our results reveal that anthropogenic climate change has already exacerbated pollen seasons in the past three decades with attendant deleterious effects on respiratory health."

•••••

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-02/uou-yas020421.php

News Release 8-Feb-2021
Yes, allergy seasons are getting worse; blame climate change
University of Utah

If you live with seasonal allergies and feel like the pollen seasons feel longer and longer every year, you may be right. New research shows that pollen seasons start 20 days earlier, are 10 days longer, and feature 21% more pollen than in 1990--meaning more days of itchy, sneezy, drippy misery.

 •••••

 Allergies to airborne pollen can be more than just a seasonal nuisance to many. Allergies are tied to respiratory health, with implications for viral infections, emergency room visits and even children's school performance. More pollen, hanging around for a longer season, makes those impacts worse.

•••••

The results showed that climate change alone could account for around half of the pollen season lengthening and around 8 percent of the pollen amount increasing. By splitting the study years into two periods, 1990-2003 and 2003-2018, the researchers found that the contribution of climate change to increasing pollen amounts is accelerating.

"Climate change isn't something far away and in the future. It's already here in every spring breath we take and increasing human misery," says Anderegg. "The biggest question is--are we up to the challenge of tackling it?"

 

Supporting news

I wish there were some kind of group news subscription.  I have subscribed to several, and donated to a few others, but I can't afford to subscribe to all the ones I find useful.

European spies can stop holding back secrets from the US after Biden called for end to Trump's briefings, sources say

https://news.yahoo.com/european-spies-stop-holding-back-155804209.html

Mitch Prothero
Mon, February 8, 2021, 10:58 AM

Moves by President Joe Biden to restrict Donald Trump's access to intelligence has reassured European allies that they can share freely with the US again, sources told Insider.

Officials in three different intelligence services in Europe responded warmly to comments by Biden in his first TV interview as president, where he said he didn't want Trump to keep getting intelligence briefings.

Previous presidents have been given the briefings as a courtesy, which the current president can cancel at any time.

Though Biden said he saw no need for Trump to keep getting briefed, he stopped short of saying definitively that he would cut him off.

Nonetheless, the move reassured the intelligence officials Insider spoke to, all of whom requested anonymity because of the nature of their work.

Biden said Trump's handling of COVID-19 was 'even more dire than we thought' after finding insufficient vaccine supplies

https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/biden-said-trumps-handling-of-covid-19-was-even-more-dire-than-we-thought-after-finding-insufficient-vaccine-supplies/articleshow/80751222.cms

Mia Jankowicz
Feb 8, 2021, 17:47 IST

President Joe Biden said that since taking office, he found that the Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 crisis was even worse than he had believed it would be.


•••••

Biden said that he had been handed a "dire" situation by the former administration.

"One of the disappointments was when we came into office is the circumstance relating to how the [former] administration was handling COVID was even more dire than we thought," Biden said. "We thought that it had indicated there was a lot more vaccine available and it didn't turn out to be the case. So that's why we've ramped up every way we can."

He said he planned to use NFL stadiums for mass vaccinations to speed the process, but said that the availability of vaccines was holding things back.

"It was one thing if we had enough vaccine, which we didn't, so we're pushing as hard as we can to get more vaccines manufactured," he said.

The Biden administration also wants to launch a major pro-vaccination advertising blitz, but the project is on ice due to the low availability of doses, according to Politico.

•••••

Android barcode scanner with 10 million+ downloads infects users

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/02/android-barcode-scanner-with-10-million-downloads-infects-users/

A benign barcode scanner with more than 10 million downloads from Google Play has been caught receiving an upgrade that turned it to the dark side, prompting the search-and-advertising giant to remove it.

Barcode Scanner, one of dozens of such apps available in the official Google app repository, began its life as a legitimate offering. Then in late December, researchers with security firm Malwarebytes began receiving messages from customers complaining that ads were opening out of nowhere on their default browser.
One update is all it takes

Malwarebytes mobile malware researcher Nathan Collier was at first puzzled. None of the customers had recently installed any apps, and all the apps they had already installed came from Play, a market that despite its long history of admitting malicious apps remains safer than most third-party sites. Eventually, Collier identified the culprit as the Barcode Scanner. The researcher said an update delivered in December included code that was responsible for the bombardment of ads.

“It is frightening that with one update an app can turn malicious while going under the radar of Google Play Protect,” Collier wrote. “It is baffling to me that an app developer with a popular app would turn it into malware. Was this the scheme all along, to have an app lie dormant, waiting to strike after it reaches popularity?”

•••••

Google removed the app after Collier privately notified the company. So far, however, Google has yet to use its Google Play Protect tool to remove the app from devices that had it installed. That means users will have to remove the app themselves.

•••••

GOP Rep. Ron Wright dies following Covid diagnosis

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/08/politics/ron-wright-congressman-dies/

 

By Clare Foran and Kristin Wilson, CNN
Updated 6:59 PM ET, Mon February 8, 2021

Republican Rep. Ron Wright of Texas has died, his congressional office announced in a statement Monday, saying that he had been admitted to the hospital after contracting Covid-19.

"Congressman Ron Wright passed away peacefully at the age of 67 on Feb. 7, 2021. His wife Susan was by his side and he is now in the presence of their Lord and Savior," the statement read. "For the previous two weeks, Ron and Susan had been admitted to Baylor Hospital in Dallas after contracting COVID-19."

Wright is the first sitting member of Congress to die after contracting Covid. In December, Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died after being diagnosed with the disease.

Wright's congressional office announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19 on January 21 with the congressman saying at the time in a statement, "I am experiencing minor symptoms, but overall, I feel okay and will continue working for the people of the 6th District from home this week."

•••••

Responsibility

Does anybody really believe the writers of the constitution intended that if a president did something, after he had lost the election, like foment a rebellion, too close to the end of his term that it was too late to hold an impeachment before his term expired,  that nothing could be done to hold him responsible?  If it is discovered after a police person or a prosecutor quits or retires that they did wrong, that does that mean they shouldn't be prosecuted?  If Trump had personally killed a police person at the capital, would it really be too late to hold him responsible?  I do not at all believe that if a Democratic president had acted the way Trump did, that the republicans would be saying he could not be kept from holding office in the future, at least.  Their claims to care about law and order and honor are shown to be hollow words.

========================

https://twitter.com/itsJeffTiedrich/status/1358794302952996873

Jeff Tiedrich
@itsJeffTiedrich
so for four years we couldn't prosecute Trump because he was president and now we have to let him get away with it because he's no longer president? holy fucking shit, this is some industrial-strength bullshit and I'm not having any of it
10:06 AM · Feb 8, 2021

 ======================

 https://twitter.com/PamKeithFL/status/1358495777438466050

Pam Keith, Esq.
@PamKeithFL

2:20 PM · Feb 7, 2021

Osama Bin Laden did not fly planes into any U.S.  buildings.

He just asked & inspired people to do it, drew money & resources to the effort, set the timing & launched the execution from afar.

In what way was Donald Trump’s role in 1/6 ANY DIFFERENT?

hthth

=================

People on twitter also pointed out that Charles Manson didn't personally kill anybody, but he is spending life in prison for his role in indoctrinating his followers to do so.

Challenge the results?

A parody of Trump and his followers denial of the election results.

https://twitter.com/NubomTrk/status/1358614625881886722

 

10:12 PM · Feb 7, 2021

Newbomb Turk
 

Before anyone gives Tom Brady a trophy, don’t forget that the Chiefs have the right to exhaust every legal avenue to challenge the result. It would be irresponsible to congratulate the Buccaneers so early. Many many fans are upset. Wouldn’t want them to lose trust.

Investors are pouring billions into US mobile home communities — but residents are feeling trapped by rising rents

Republicans say we shouldn't raise the minimum wage to $15/hour because it would cause inflation.  But they ignore the inflation caused by parasites who are raising mobile rents; shoddy products that are built to not last too long so you have to keep buying new ones; local governments who only allow large homes to be built so there is a lack of housing for people of modest means; investors who buy drug companies and jack up the prices of medicine.

https://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-home-community-owners-private-equity-investment-2020-2

Sara Silverstein
Feb 15, 2020, 9:04 AM


•••••

Over the past decade, private equity investors have been buying up communities like Colony Cove and turning huge profits, thanks in part to government-backed loans originally meant to help people like Dahlquist.

But while investors have seen profits expand, many of the 22 million Americans living in mobile homes feel they've been left behind.

"The landlords take the benefits of the cheaper financing, put it in their pocket, make more investments, give it to their investors," Patrick Rucker, a correspondent for the research firm The Capitol Forum, told Business Insider.

"But for people on the ground in these aging mobile homes, things have gotten worse."

Mobile homes are significantly cheaper than traditional homes, costing less than half the price per square foot.

There are 40,000 land-leased mobile home communities in the United States. In these communities, residents own their homes, but they rent the land beneath it.

This makes owning a mobile home similar to owning a car that you park in a rented spot in a garage. 

But if the parking garage you are in starts to fall apart or the fee goes up, you can simply drive to a different garage and find a better spot.

That's not the case for mobile home owners, however. Despite their names, mobile homes are actually difficult to move for most people. Most homes are built in a factory and wheeled to the home site, and after the initial placement, moving the home can be costly.

So if the land rent rises, owners are faced with paying the higher rent or potentially abandoning their homes.

•••••

Mobile homes are an important source of affordable housing in the US. Because of that, government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide cheaper loans against these communities to increase the availability of this type of housing.

•••••

These government-sponsored entities have provided over $15 billion in financing against mobile home communities over the past decade. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac offer attractive rates that save investment firms money. Rucker, the Capitol Forum correspondent, estimates investors in mobile home communities have saved at least $200 million in interest from these loans.

 

Last year, a report on private equity investing in mobile home communities said these loans would be more effective if they had specific rules attached to protect the residents, like rent controls and rules that make it easier for residents to get out.

"I mean, this is taxpayer money essentially that's standing behind this whole enterprise, and we want the benefits to be direct — not some notional possible trickle-down scenario," Rucker said.

•••••

https://apnews.com/article/fcaf55d3ef8342b6a8e79fe06e15cc50

 

Private equity firms rapidly investing in mobile home parks

 

By ZACHARY OREN SMITH

 April 20, 2019

Mobile home owners who for years have enjoyed some immunity from rising housing costs are increasingly finding themselves subjected to massive rent increases, not just here in Iowa, but across the country.

Havenpark Capital, a Utah-based real estate investment firm, raised eyebrows — along with rents — after it purchased parks in the Iowa City and Des Moines metro areas and immediately announced plans for rent spikes. In North Liberty, rents at Golfview Mobile Home Park will rise 58% and in Waukee, rents at Midwest Country Estates will rise 69%. Havenpark Capital recently purchased two more mobile communities: Iowa City’s Sunrise Village and West Branch’s West Branch Village. And as it turns out these are just the tip of the iceberg, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reported.

•••••

In 2018, there were approximately 8.5 million manufactured homes in the United States, accounting for nearly 10% of the nation’s housing stock, according to the Manufactured Housing Institute. This has been a source of affordable housing, in particular for rural and low-income residents.

“These are affordable homes for low income folks,” said Liz Voigt of Manufactured Housing Action and a co-author of the 2019 report. “That’s what the market has been for a long time. It hasn’t really occurred to people that they could gouge them for 80% of their Social Security check. That’s the analysis that these companies have seen: they could make a very big increase in profits based on rent increases in nearly any conditions.”

•••••

Part of the issue is residents commonly own their mobile home but not the land underneath it. If lot rents become unaffordable, residents may have no other option but to try and sell their home to the park or abandon it all together. Moving homes to another park can cost thousands of dollars and moving often means sustaining damage to the home, further depreciating its value.

The 2019 report quotes material from Mobile Home University, a project of RV Horizons aimed at educating aspiring mobile home park investors on the revenue model: “The fact that tenants can’t afford the $5,000 it takes to move a mobile home makes it easy to raise rent without losing any occupancy.”

[Also, most mobile home parks don't allow homes over a certain age to be moved in.]

•••••

 To create protections for these communities, there are three “buckets” of policy solutions Voigt pointed to that she said localities and states should pursue to add protections for manufactured home owners in their communities.

“There is a regulatory environment in which (these firms) operate that has created an enormously profitable business on the backs of poor people,” Voigt said.

The first strategy would be to find some consistent means of regulating rent. Voigt emphasized that these regulations look different in different places.

•••••

The second strategy is for residents to have a say in how the park they live in is improved, and an avenue for making complaints if it is not being taken care of properly.

•••••

The third strategy is more complicated. Even if there are limits on the amount rent can be increased and residents have the ability to reliably file grievances, an investment firm is in business to generate revenue. While this doesn’t necessarily put them at odds with residents, a 58% tax increase does.

“There needs to be a clear path toward alternative forms of ownership,” Voigt said.

They ask states to enact laws that give mobile park tenants and associations a chance to buy their park if property owners are approached with an offer. Voigt said that if our goal is to keep these parks affordable in the long term, drastic changes in ownership might be one of the few ways to keep the needs of tenants at the heart of decision making.

•••••

Social Security Benefit Cuts Are Here -- You Just Haven't Been Paying Close Enough Attention to Notice

This has certainly been true for me. My mobile home lot rental goes up every year, even when there is no increase in SS, and when there is an increase in SS, the rent increase takes almost all of it, and has usually been more than my SS increase.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2020/07/31/social-security-benefit-cuts-are-here-you-just-hav.aspx

Sean Williams
Jul 31, 2020 at 6:06AM

As one example, take a closer look at how Social Security's inflationary tether, the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), has influenced the purchasing power of seniors' Social Security dollars over the past 20 years.

Since 1975, the CPI-W has measured the price changes for a predetermined basket of goods and services. The Social Security Administration is then able to compare the average CPI-W reading from the third quarter (July through September) of the current year to the average CPI-W reading from the third quarter of the previous year. If the average has risen from one year to the next, it signifies inflation. And when there's inflation, it means Social Security beneficiaries are receiving a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in the upcoming year.

This may sound like a perfect system to measure the inflation that Social Security's 64 million beneficiaries are facing, but it's highly flawed. That's because, as the CPI-W's official name implies, it tracks the spending habits of urban and clerical workers, neither of which are typically seniors or Social Security beneficiaries. Essentially, this means Social Security's COLA determinant is tethered to a group of people who don't represent a majority of beneficiaries.

In plainer English, the CPI-W isn't providing accurate inflation readings for the costs seniors are facing. Important expenditures (relative to retired workers' budgets) like medical care and housing are being underweighted. Meanwhile, less-important costs to seniors, such as education, apparel, and transportation, are given added weight.

The result, according to The Senior Citizens League, is a 30% loss of purchasing power for Social Security income since 2000.

•••••

Republicans advance more than 100 bills that would restrict voting in wake of Trump's defeat

Conservatives have tried to rig the vote for themselves forever.  The have cheating characters.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/republicans-advance-more-100-bills-would-restrict-voting-wake-trump-n1256821

Feb. 5, 2021, 6:16 PM EST
By Jane C. Timm

State Republicans have in recent weeks advanced a spate of proposals that would restrict access to the ballot box, a move voting rights experts warned was coming after President Joe Biden's win.

State lawmakers are considering more than 100 laws that would make it harder to vote, according to an analysis conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. This number represents almost triple the number of similarly restrictive bills under consideration this time last year, according to the analysis.

These bills, in the works in 28 states, primarily seek to limit mail-in voting access, add voter ID requirements and make it harder to get on or stay on the voter rolls, according to the Brennan Center. There are nearly 2,000 bills moving through state legislatures aimed at addressing election-related issues overall, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Mail-in voting proved key to Biden's victory, as more Democrats than Republicans embraced the method rather than congregating at the polls as an uncontrolled pandemic raged. Experts have attributed this split to then-President Donald Trump's unrelenting effort to sow doubt in the integrity of the 2020 race with false claims that vote-by-mail is inherently fraudulent, and appeals to his supporters to vote in person.

“People are planting the seeds, laying the groundwork, and then saying, ‘Look, people are fearing exactly what I told them to fear’ even though there’s no evidence or basis for that,” said Eliza Sweren-Becker, an attorney at the Brennan Center who worked on the analysis of the state legislative proposals.

There’s an even more prolific effort to expand voting access, with more than 400 bills in 35 states proposing the expansion of access to the vote.

But with Republicans controlling the majority of state legislatures in the U.S., voting rights advocates say they are on high alert for new laws that will make it harder for voters to cast their ballots in future elections.


•••••

Some states are also attempting to rethink how Electoral College votes are allocated in the presidential contest.

In Wisconsin and Mississippi, Republicans have proposed distributing electors proportionately, based on the results of individual congressional districts instead of a winner-takes-all statewide allocation. It’s a system only Maine and Nebraska use, but that too could change: Republicans in the Nebraska Legislature have proposed giving all their electors to the statewide winner, after Biden won one of the state’s electoral votes.

Lawmakers in Oklahoma and Arizona have proposed cutting voters out of the process, giving themselves power to allocate the state electors to a candidate. Arizona would give legislators the power to override the secretary of state's certification of the vote, appointing electors to a candidate of their own choosing. Oklahoma would give legislators the power to appoint electors unless there is a federal law requiring voter ID and auditable paper ballots, in which case the power would be returned to voters. That bill was sent to committee this week.

Meanwhile, 11 states have introduced proposals to join an interstate compact that would undermine the traditional Electoral College structure. If enough states join, participating states agree to allocate electors to whoever wins the popular vote nationwide.

•••••

Toxic Metals Contaminate All Baby Foods Tested: New Government Report

https://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-metals-baby-food-2650294495.html

 

Olivia Rosane
Feb. 04, 2021 01:55PM EST

A new Congressional report presents some disturbing information about the contents of popular baby foods, including some organic brands.

Toxic metals arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury were all present at levels beyond what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers safe for other products. Yet infants are particularly susceptible to these toxins, which can impair their neurological development and have lifelong impacts on their ability to earn a living and avoid criminal behavior.

"No level of exposure to these metals has been shown to be safe in vulnerable infants," Linda McCauley, dean of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University, told The New York Times.

The report was published Thursday by the House Oversight Committee's subcommittee on economic and consumer policy. It was prompted by a 2019 report from Healthy Babies Bright Futures, which found that heavy metals were present in 95 percent of commercially available baby foods.

"What they did was take food off store shelves and test it. We said we should go straight to the companies and ask for their materials," subcommittee Chair Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) told The Washington Post.

•••••



The FDA has currently only set one legal limit for toxic metals in baby food, according to The New York Times. It requires that rice cereal not have more than 100 ppb arsenic. However, many of the ingredients tested far exceeded the legal limits set by the government for drinking water. The FDA limits for bottled water are 10 ppb inorganic arsenic, 5 ppb lead, and 5 ppb cadmium, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has mandated there be no more than 2 ppb mercury in drinking water.

"The test results of baby foods and their ingredients eclipse those levels: including results up to 91 times the arsenic level, up to 177 times the lead level, up to 69 times the cadmium level, and up to 5 times the mercury level," the report authors wrote.


•••••

Immediate Climate Action Can Save U.S. $3.5 Trillion Over Time

https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-action-save-money-2650291088.html

Climate Nexus
Feb. 04, 2021 09:48AM EST

Promptly implementing the aggressive actions necessary to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas pollution to net-zero by 2050 would save the U.S. at least $3.5 trillion compared to the cost of waiting until 2030 to start achieving that goal, a report published Wednesday by Energy Innovation found.

The savings, the authors of the report emphasize, only consider the spending required to slash U.S. emissions and thus do not include the savings that would be incurred by the public health benefits of reducing fossil fuel extraction and combustion or the avoided costs associated with extreme weather which delayed climate action could worsen.


•••••

Record Rainfall Linked to Surging Methane Emissions in East Africa

In other words, here is another feedback which is causing GW to occur faster than expected.

https://www.ecowatch.com/rainfall-methane-emissions-africa-2650294283.html

 

Emily Denny
Feb. 04, 2021 01:08PM EST

Scientists have long warned the public about compound climate events when climate change drivers combine with climate disasters. One occurrence may already be happening in East Africa, a study published Wednesday found.

In 2018 and 2019, East Africa experienced unusually wet seasons, provoked by warmer ocean temperatures in the western Indian Ocean and cooler temperatures in the eastern Indian Ocean. Together, the seasons caused widespread flooding and rising water levels.

At the same time, scientists also noticed a dramatic increase in methane emissions in the same region. The two events could be linked, the scientists warn.

thane is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat 28 times more effectively over a 100-year period than carbon dioxide, according to NASA. About 50 percent of methane emissions are produced from human activity, like agriculture, waste management, rice cultivation, as well as oil, gas and coal extraction.

An additional 30 percent of methane emissions are produced by ponds, lakes, rivers and wetlands, which cover over 131 million hectares in Africa alone, according to Wetlands International.

•••••

"The best known example of wetlands for disaster risk reduction is probably the mangrove swamps in the tropics," Wood wrote. "On the east and west coasts of Africa these areas provide a buffer against storm surges, cyclones and tsunamis, as well as providing breeding grounds for fish and storage of carbon."

But despite their ability to support economic livelihoods and safeguard communities against extreme weather, wetlands may also reach a breaking point. When wetlands in East Africa became flooded from extreme rainfall, methane emissions in the region were substantially higher than in past years, the study found, causing a 10 percent and 37 percent increase compared to previous years with average rainfalls.

•••••

A similar effect may be occurring in New York City's sewage systems, another study performed by Riverkeeper found. When sewage systems overflowed, high concentrations of methane were released, linking rainfall to surges in greenhouse gas emissions.

"When setting goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cities aren't accounting for emissions that result from raw sewage releases to estuaries," Riverkeeper reported.

•••••

In East Africa, the frequency of extreme rainfall is expected to grow, professor Paul Palmer, from the University of Edinburgh, who co-authored the study, told the Institute of Physics, according to Phys.org. "Our findings show that such a future scenario will have far-reaching consequences for global concentrations of atmospheric methane."

Reversing Trump foreign policy, Biden criticizes Russia in first State Department visit

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/reversing-trump-foreign-policy-biden-end-u-s-support-offensive-n1256738

Feb. 4, 2021, 12:52 PM EST / Updated Feb. 4, 2021, 4:17 PM EST
By Lauren Egan and Abigail Williams

President Joe Biden criticized Russia in his first visit to the State Department on Thursday, part of the new leader's effort to reverse the foreign policy posture of his predecessor.

"I made it clear to President Putin in a manor very different from my predecessor that the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive actions — interfering with our elections, cyber attacks, poisoning its citizens — are over. We will not hesitate to the raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interest and our people," Biden said.

Former President Donald Trump was reluctant throughout his term to publicly speak out against Vladimir Putin. Trump suggested in 2018 that he believed Putin over American intelligence when the Russian president denied that he meddled in the 2016 election, he refused to condemn the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and was quiet on Russia's hacking of U.S. government agencies last year. Trump's ties to Russia were also the subject of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.

•••••

Former Owner of Health Care Staffing Company Indicted for Wage Fixing

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-owner-health-care-staffing-company-indicted-wage-fixing

Thursday, December 10, 2020

A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Neeraj Jindal, the former owner of a therapist staffing company, for participating in a conspiracy to fix prices by lowering the rates paid to physical therapists and physical therapist assistants in north Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, the Department of Justice announced today.  The indictment also charges Jindal with obstruction of the Federal Trade Commission’s separate investigation into this conduct.

According to the two-count indictment filed in the U.S. District Court in Sherman, Texas, Jindal and his co-conspirators agreed to pay lower rates to certain physical therapists and physical therapist assistants, and Jindal’s company paid lower rates, from in or about March 2017 and continuing through in or about August 2017.  Jindal is charged with participating in the conspiracy when he was the owner of a Texas-based therapist staffing company that provided in-home physical therapy services.  Jindal is also charged with obstruction of proceedings before the Federal Trade Commission.  According to the indictment, Jindal made false and misleading statements and withheld and concealed information during the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation to determine whether Jindal’s company or other therapist staffing companies violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

•••••

‘Trump Just Used Us and Our Fear’: One Woman’s Journey Out of QAnon

I didn't want Bernie Sanders as president, although I was happy to have him in Congress.  But I have long deplored the way the Democrats no longer valued working class, and stopped speaking out for them.  I feel Biden is someone who does care.  It was obvious Trump really didn't, that he is a manipulator who says whatever he thinks will work for him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/leaving-qanon-conspiracy.html?fbclid=IwAR0Omy3wKU_Gob8gTzzjrtwxO0T7DObs7Vzi1O4Rr0JIKVVvSUUo7JkKfS4

 

By Sabrina Tavernise
Jan. 29, 2021


•••••

“At some point I realized, ‘Oh, there’s a reason this doesn’t fit,’” she said. “We are being manipulated. Someone is having fun at our expense.”

•••••

QAnon believers are part of a broader swath of Americans who are immersed in conspiracy theories. Once on the far-right fringes, these theories now hold people from across the political spectrum in their thrall, from anti-lockdown libertarians to left-wing wellness types and “Stop the Steal” Trumpists.

•••••

But while much has been said about how people descend into this world, little is known about how they get out. Those who do leave are often filled with shame. Sometimes their addiction was so severe that they have become estranged from family and friends.

The theories seem crazy to Ms. Perron now, but looking back, she understands how they drew her in. They were comforting, a way to get her bearings in a chaotic world that felt increasingly unequal and rigged against middle-class people like her. These stories offered agency: Evil cabals could be defeated. A diffuse sense that things were out of her control could not.

The theories were fiction, but they hooked into an emotional vulnerability that sprang from something real. For Ms. Perron, it was a feeling that the Democratic Party had betrayed her after a lifetime of trusting it deeply.

Her immigrant family, from the former Yugoslavia, were union Democrats in working-class Detroit who had seen their middle-class lifestyle decline after the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. As an inspector for the insurance industry, she spent decades in factories seeing union jobs wither. Still, she stayed with the party because she believed it was fighting for her. When Bernie Sanders became a presidential candidate she found him electrifying.

“He put into words what I couldn’t figure out but I was seeing around me,” said Ms. Perron, who is now 55. “The middle class was shrinking. The 1 percent and corporations having more control and taking more of the money.”

•••••

The emails were Ms. Perron’s doorway to the conspiracy world, and she found others there too. She was no longer a lonely victim of a force she did not understand, but part of a bigger community of people seeking the truth. She loved the feeling of common purpose. They were learning together how to research, looking up important people in the emails and figuring out how to trace them back to big donors.

“There was this excitement,” Ms. Perron said. “We were joining forces to finally clean house. To finally find something to explain why we were suffering.”

•••••

“Q managed to make us feel special, that we were being given very critical information that basically was going to save all that is good in the world and the United States,” she said. “We felt we were coming from a place of moral superiority. We were part of a special club.”

•••••

People who tried to talk her out of the conspiracy theories by sending her factual information only made it worse.

“Facts are not facts anymore,” Ms. Perron said. “They are highly powerful, nefarious people putting out messaging to keep us as docile as sheep.”

•••••

When she first left QAnon, she felt a lot of shame and guilt. It was also humbling: Ms. Perron, who has a master’s degree, had looked down on Scientologists as people who believed crazy things. But there she was.

But she has come to appreciate the experience. She has talked to her children about what she went through, and has learned to identify conspiracy dependence in others. She agreed to speak for this article to help others who are still in the throes of QAnon.

•••••

Mr. Trump may be gone from government, but Ms. Perron believes that the ground is still fertile for conspiracy theories because many of the underlying conditions are the same: widespread distrust of authority, anger at powerful figures in politics and in the news media, and growing income inequality.

Unless there are major changes, Ms. Perron said, the craving will continue.

“Trump just used us and our fear,” she said. “When you are no longer living in fear, you are no longer prone to believe this stuff. I don’t think we are anywhere near that yet.”

More and more companies have monopoly power over workers’ wages. That’s killing the economy.

https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/6/17204808/wages-employers-workers-monopsony-growth-stagnation-inequality

 [I suggest reading the whole article]

By Suresh Naidu, Eric Posner, and Glen Weyl Apr 6, 2018, 9:50am EDT

Our current [before Covid pandemic] economic expansion has lasted almost nine years, yet wages have hardly budged, especially for less skilled workers. Inflation-adjusted wages for the average worker have risen only by 3 percent since the 1970s — and have actually declined for the bottom fifth.

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that wage growth had slowed because of rising competition from low-paid workers in foreign countries (globalization), as well as the replacement of workers with machinery, including robots (automation). But in recent years, economists have discovered another source: the growth of the labor market power of employers — namely, their power to dictate, and hence suppress, wages.

•••••

It turns out, however, that labor markets are often uncompetitive: Employers have the power to hold down wages by a host of methods and for numerous reasons. And new academic studies suggest the markets have been growing ever more uncompetitive over time.

•••••

Few company towns exist today. Still, a variation of the company town effect exists in some regions, at least for certain occupations. A nurse or doctor who lives in a small town or rural area can choose only among a handful of medical institutions within driving distance of his or her home, for example.

And in many areas of rural America, the best jobs are in chicken processing plants, private prisons, agribusinesses, and other large-scale employers that dominate their local economies. Workers can either choose to take the jobs on offer or incur the turmoil of moving elsewhere. Companies can and do take advantage of this leverage.

[It also costs a lot to move.]

Yet another source of labor market power are so-called noncompete agreements, which are far more prevalent than many Americans realize. These agreements prohibit workers who leave a job from working for a competitor of their former employer.

Almost a quarter of all workers report that their current employer or a former employer forced them to sign a noncompete clause. (Jimmy John’s, the sandwich franchise, famously asked its “sandwich artists” to sign covenants forbidding them from taking jobs with Jimmy John’s competitors.) Relatedly, Apple and several other high-tech firms were caught entering into collusive “no poach” agreements so they didn’t have to worry about losing engineers to each other, and settled with the Justice Department.

But the practice continues in many sectors of the economy — including fast-food franchises. No-poaching agreements, like noncompete clauses, enhance employers’ labor market power by depriving workers of the threat to quit if wages fall or stagnate.

•••••

While employers have taken advantage of labor market power throughout modern economic history, a worldwide social movement at the end of the 19th century moderated the worst excesses. Workers organized labor unions, which enabled them to oppose employers’ market power with the threat to shut down plants. A powerful legal regime was put in place that supported unions and protected workers with health, safety, minimum wage, and maximum-hour regulations.

•••••

But the good times ended in the 1970s. Globalization, changes in workplace technology, and the rise of a more heterogeneous workforce put strains on unions. A conservative reaction to technocratic liberalism, led by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, eroded support for labor and employment law. A wave of mergers produced larger corporations with even greater labor market power.

•••••

Similarly, to raise its profits, a monopsonist lowers wages below the value of the workers to the employer. Because not all workers are willing to work at these depressed wages, monopsony leads some workers to quit.

Firms bear the loss in workers (and resulting lowered sales) in exchange for the higher profits made off the workers who do not quit. The resulting group of workers looking for jobs are what Marx called the “reserve army of the unemployed.”

Employer labor market power thus reduces employment, raises prices, and depresses the economy. Those sound a lot like the harms that conservative economists have long attributed to excessive taxation. And that’s no coincidence. Wage suppression is just like a tax: a tax on the labor of workers.

•••••

U.S. chicken industry accused of conspiring to keep immigrant wages down

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-03/u-s-chicken-industry-accused-of-conspiring-to-keep-immigrant-wages-down

 

By Deena Shanker and Polly Mosendz
Bloomberg
Sep. 3, 2019 10:44 AM PT

Companies producing more than 90% of America’s chicken have conspired to depress wages for a largely immigrant workforce in some of the nation’s most dangerous jobs, according to a lawsuit.

The case filed last week is mostly based on interviews with former employees, and it alleges that a conspiracy among 18 companies, their subsidiaries and affiliates and two consulting firms continues today. It was filed on behalf of three former workers but seeks class-action status for hundreds of thousands, many with limited language skills and few other prospects for employment.

Since 2009, leaders of the firms’ human resources and compensation departments have held annual secret meetings at a Destin, Fla., hotel to discuss pay and benefits for line and maintenance workers at about 200 plants, according to the complaint in federal court in Baltimore. Using consulting agencies as intermediaries, the suit says, they share detailed wage information. It says plant managers also cooperate, for example, by calling each other when one announces an expansion to find out what new positions will pay.

Chicken producers aren’t new to being on the receiving end of litigation. Three years ago, a class-action lawsuit filed by Maplevale Farm, a food distributor, accused them of price fixing enabled by the Indiana-based data company Agri Stats Inc. Lawsuits from consumers, distributors, grocery chains and food companies followed, and this summer the Justice Department intervened. It asked the court to halt proceedings while it pursued its own criminal investigation.


•••••

How an Alabama man went from Obama supporter to dying in the Capitol insurrection

https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/how-an-alabama-man-went-from-obama-supporter-to-dying-in-the-capitol-insurrection.html?fbclid=IwAR3MDkHBswzXRGNCQeuEsVb3yT-55M4K2U1K9dC42y1qTjXbIU9HfttSrSI

 

Updated Jan 15, 2021; Posted Jan 15, 2021

By Connor Sheets

This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. AL.com was a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network in 2019.

In 2009, Kevin Greeson traveled from Alabama to witness the inauguration of President Barack Obama, at the time one of his political heroes. Twelve years later, a stone’s throw from where Obama had been sworn in, Greeson died of a heart attack while demonstrating in support of President Donald Trump during the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol.

Greeson had undergone a stark political transformation in those intervening years. A longtime Democrat who once championed unions and supported progressive politicians, Greeson had become a staunch Trump supporter by the time he died outside the Capitol at the age of 55.

•••••

“He was a vice president at the union, and he was an Obama supporter,” said Mark McDaniel, the Huntsville attorney representing the Greeson family. “He got interested in Trump because he felt he was more business-minded, and as the economy kept getting better, he kept getting more interested in Trump.”

For much of the late 20th century, north Alabama was home to a number of large factories and industrial facilities that provided blue-collar jobs with decent wages to people like Greeson. But many of those positions were eliminated over the past two decades as manufacturers and plants closed or sold to foreign companies — and as the jobs disappeared, the Democratic Party’s support dwindled.

•••••

US cities under-report carbon emissions by 18 per cent on average

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2266424-us-cities-under-report-carbon-emissions-by-18-per-cent-on-average/

 

Environment 2 February 2021
By Donna Lu

Kevin Gurney at Northern Arizona University and his colleagues have developed an automated measurement system known as Vulcan, which can estimate fossil-fuel emissions at specific geographic points and over large areas.

Vulcan makes its estimates based on dozens of publicly available data sets, including local air quality emission reports, energy statistics, traffic data as well as measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2266424-us-cities-under-report-carbon-emissions-by-18-per-cent-on-average/#ixzz6lRxcG6Ts

.....

 

Sea level rise could be worse than feared, warn researchers

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/02/sea-level-rise-could-be-worse-than-feared-warn-researchers

 

Karen McVeigh
@karenmcveigh1
Tue 2 Feb 2021 12.00 EST

to validate various models relied on by the IPCC to make its assessment, they found a discrepancy of about 25cm [10 in], they said in a paper published in the journal Ocean Science.

The researchers said the models used by the IPCC were not sensitive enough, based on what they described as a “reality check” test.

•••••

The rise predictions used by the IPCC are based on a “jigsaw puzzle” of models for ice sheets, glaciers and thermal expansion or warming of the sea. The more the temperature rises, the higher the sea level will get.

But, Grinsted said, only a limited amount of data was sometimes available for the models to be tested on. There was practically no data on the melt-off rate for Antarctica before satellite observations in the 1990s, he said. Grinsted found that while individual data, when tested backwards in time, from 1850 to 2017, reflected actual sea level rise, when the data was combined the predictions were too conservative.

“We have better historical data for the sea level rise in total, which, in principle, allows for a test of the combined puzzle of models,” said Grinsted.

•••••

Human noise affects animal behaviour, studies show

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/03/human-noise-affects-animal-behaviour-studies-show

 

Traffic noise affected zebra finches’ foraging habits and field crickets’ mating

 

 Natalie Grover Science correspondent
Tue 2 Feb 2021 19.01 EST

Working from home during Covid-19 has brought noise pollution close to home, whether it’s your partner making calls within earshot or grinding coffee during your Zoom interview. Now research suggests the animal kingdom is also disturbed by the noise of humans and our gadgets.

As humans proliferate, we have penetrated deeper into wildlife habitats, creating a pervasive rise in environmental sound that not only directly affects the ability of animals to hear but indeed communicate. Emerging research suggests noise pollution, caused, for instance, by traffic, interferes with animal behaviour, including cognition and mating.

In an attempt to capture the impact of traffic sounds on cognitive performance, researchers gave adult zebra finches – a species of diminutive songbirds native to Australia – a series of foraging tasks.

The birds were either in a relatively quiet laboratory environment or treated to traffic noises designed to simulate a series of cars driving past 20 to 30 metres away.

•••••

All tasks apart from colour association learning were negatively affected by traffic noise, the researchers wrote in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

“We weren’t really sure that we would see such a strong effect,” said study author Christopher Templeton, an assistant professor at Pacific University, Oregon, US.

“These are birds that … live in big colonies, they’re all talking all the time making quite a big ruckus. So, to see that just the simple act of hearing cars drive by is enough to really keep them from being able to perform on these tests is pretty surprising in some ways.”

•••••

Whole Foods must face lawsuit over its honey graham crackers

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-whole-foods-graham-cracker/whole-foods-must-face-lawsuit-over-its-honey-graham-crackers-idUSKBN2A22LH

February 2, 20212:07 PMUpdated an hour ago

By Jonathan Stempel

 

A federal judge in Manhattan said on Tuesday Whole Foods Market must face a proposed class-action lawsuit claiming it deceived shoppers about the contents of its 365 Organic Honey Graham Crackers.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Woods said Chandra Campbell plausibly alleged that the words “Honey” and “Graham” on the box misled reasonable consumers into thinking that the crackers contained more healthy whole grain flour than non-whole grain flour, and that honey rather than sugar was the main sweetener.

“It is not implausible that consumers would understand the words on the box to say what they mean,” Woods wrote in a 31-page decision. The box also shows a honey dipper in a bowl of honey.

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Suspected Chinese hackers used SolarWinds bug to spy on U.S. payroll agency – sources

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-solarwinds-china-exclusive/exclusive-suspected-chinese-hackers-used-solarwinds-bug-to-spy-on-u-s-payroll-agency-sources-idUSKBN2A22K8

By Christopher Bing, Jack Stubbs, Raphael Satter, Joseph Menn

February 2, 20211:43 PM

Suspected Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in software made by SolarWinds Corp to help break into U.S. government computers last year, five people familiar with the matter told Reuters, marking a new twist in a sprawling cybersecurity breach that U.S. lawmakers have labeled a national security emergency.

Two people briefed on the case said FBI investigators recently found that the National Finance Center, a federal payroll agency inside the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was among the affected organizations, raising fears that data on thousands of government employees may have been compromised.

The software flaw exploited by the suspected Chinese group is separate from the one the United States has accused Russian government operatives of using to compromise up to 18,000 SolarWinds customers, including sensitive federal agencies, by hijacking the company’s Orion network monitoring software.

Security researchers have previously said a second group of hackers was abusing SolarWinds’ software at the same time as the alleged Russian hack, but the suspected connection to China and ensuing U.S. government breach have not been previously reported.

 
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'Halfway Home' Makes Case That The Formerly Incarcerated Are Never Truly Free

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/962722415/halfway-home-makes-case-that-the-formerly-incarcerated-are-never-truly-free

February 2, 20215:00 AM ET
Ericka Taylor

To say that this nation's criminal justice system is deeply flawed is to flirt with understatement.

Everything from the oversurveillance of Black and Brown communities, to police brutality, to stop and frisk policies, to a multibillion-dollar prison labor industry demonstrates how a system ostensibly designed for fairness is anything but.

Perhaps one of the most tragic aspects of this reality, as Reuben Jonathan Miller explores in his impressive new book Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, is that even those who leave incarceration are in many ways never truly free. They instead become members of the "supervised society" — and it is this uniquely disenfranchised population that is the focus of his book.

•••••

A sociologist, criminologist, social worker, and former chaplain at Chicago's Cook County Jail, his insights are partly drawn from having spent 15 years interviewing nearly 250 people caught up in the prison industrial complex. This work included a research project during which he spent three years engaging with 60 men and 30 women after their release from incarceration in Michigan. Miller can also claim far more experiential expertise, because he was "born black and poor in the age of mass incarceration" and, like every Black person he knows, "was stopped by the police a number of times." He is a scientist armed with statistical information, and he is the son and brother of incarcerated men.

•••••

Miller is thus more than adequately equipped to make the observation that "no other marginalized group — not poor black people without criminal records, not mothers on welfare, not even undocumented immigrants — experience [the] profound level of legal exclusion" that the formerly imprisoned do. The breadth of these restrictions — which can include everything from being ineligible for student loans or public housing to living in a home that has a foster child — is remarkable. As Miller notes, "Forty-five thousand federal and state laws regulate the lives of the accused.... In Illinois, there are over 1,400, including more than 1,000 employment regulations, 186 policies that limit political participation, 54 laws restricting family rights, and 21 housing statutes."

Many of the labyrinthine rules and regulations that govern the lives of the released don't go away even when they are no longer formally under supervision. Take, for example, the story of Sabrina, told in Miller's book. Her accomplishments post-release include working on the successful campaign to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions in Florida, an international fellowship, being featured in a documentary, and taking a tour of prisons in Norway. Nonetheless, despite being employed and having strong credit — plus a letter of recommendation from a state representative — Sabrina couldn't find anyone to rent her an apartment.

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It's hard not to see the restrictions on members of the supervised society as intentionally inhumane when considering that homelessness can be a violation of parole.

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Captain Tom, Centenarian Who Inspired The U.K. With His Fundraising Walks, Has Died

What an inspiration!

 

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/02/963221778/captain-tom-centenarian-who-inspired-the-u-k-with-his-fundraising-walks-has-died

February 2, 202111:58 AM ET
Mark Katkov
Bill Chappell

Capt. Sir Tom Moore, who as he approached his 100th birthday gained fame and affection by walking sponsored laps in his garden to raise funds for charity, has died, his foundation announced Tuesday.

Moore was hospitalized Sunday for COVID-19, his daughter said via Twitter. He was three months shy of 101 at the time of his death.

The British veteran of World War II became an international sensation last spring when his modest offer to raise money for the U.K.'s National Health Service ultimately collected more than $40 million in pledges. He did it by asking donors to sponsor walks he took in his garden in England.


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In addition to his fundraising walks, Moore also became a surprise top-selling singer last year, thanks to his recording of "You'll Never Walk Alone," performed with singer Michael Ball and an NHS Voices of Care choir. Like his walks, it raised money for NHS Charities Together.

"He became not just a national inspiration but a beacon of hope for the world," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a statement, according to Reuters.

How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/02/02/961910289/how-poverty-makes-workers-less-productive

 

February 2, 20216:31 AM ET
Greg Rosalsky

 

As Washington debates sending checks to Americans and increasing the minimum wage, a new study offers evidence for how such policies could help eliminate poverty. Obviously, giving more money to people without much money helps them with money problems. But the study adds to a growing body of research that says that money really does help workers earn more money.

Sendhil Mullainathan is a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and he outlined early evidence for this theory in Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, co-authored with Princeton psychologist Eldar Shafir. Poverty, they find, is like a parasite, consuming mental energy that could be put to more beneficial use. "Put simply, being poor is likTheir main experiment was pretty simple: they randomly gave a group of workers a large portion of their compensation earlier in their work period rather than at the very end. On average, they were given 1,400 rupees, or about 20 dollars. This was equivalent to about what they had earned in the previous month, and a large fraction of them used the money to pay off outstanding debts.

The researchers then monitored the workers' on-the-job performance, comparing them to a group of workers that didn't get paid upfront. The researchers find that the workers who were paid upfront were significantly more productive, making 6.2% more plates per hour. The biggest effect was seen with the poorest workers. Even more, the plates they made were less likely to be marred by mistakes, indicating they were more attentive on the job. e having just pulled an all-nighter," Mullainathan once told NPR. And that, he says, hurts their ability to escape poverty.


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We've written before in the Planet Money newsletter about growing evidence that our welfare programs may not be up to the task. A study last year by the California Policy Lab found evidence that a huge percentage of poverty-stricken Californians are not getting the Earned Income Tax Credit because of the difficulty of filling out tax forms. Mullainathan and his colleagues' work is a reminder that policymakers should recognize the cognitive burden on many of those who live in poverty and make it easier for them to get assistance.

[Tax-Aide helps people get the Earned Income Tax Credit they are due for our clients.]

Why using rare metals to clean up the planet is no cheap fix

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933190-400-why-using-rare-metals-to-clean-up-the-planet-is-no-cheap-fix/?utm_source=nsday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NSDAY_020221

27 January 2021
By Simon Ings

WE REAP seven times as much energy from the wind and 44 times as much energy from the sun as we did a decade ago. Is this good news? Guillaume Pitron, a French journalist and documentary maker, isn’t sure.

He is neither a climate sceptic nor a fan of inaction. But as the world moves to adopt a target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, Pitron worries about the costs. The figures in his book The Rare Metals War are stark. Changing the energy model means doubling the production of rare metals about every 15 years, mostly to satisfy demand for non-ferrous magnets and lithium-ion batteries. “At this rate,” writes Pitron, “over the next 30 years we… will need to mine more mineral ores than humans have extracted over the last 70,000 years.”

Before the Renaissance, humans had found uses for seven metals. During the industrial revolution, this increased to a mere dozen. Today, we have found uses for all 90-odd of them, and some are very rare. Neodymium and gallium, for instance, are found in iron ore, but there is 1200 times less neodymium and up to 2650 times less gallium than there is iron.

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There are two sides to Pitron’s story, woven seamlessly together. First, there is the economic story of how China worked to dominate the energy and digital transition. It now controls 95 per cent of the rare earth metals market, making between 80 and 90 per cent of the batteries for electric vehicles, says Pitron, and more than half the magnets in wind turbines and electric motors.

Then there is the ecological story of the lengths China took to succeed. Today, 10 per cent of its arable land is contaminated by heavy metals, 80 per cent of its groundwater isn’t fit for consumption and air pollution contributes to around 1.6 million deaths a year there, according to Pitron (a recent paper in The Lancet says 1.24 million deaths in China a year are attributable to air pollution – but let’s not quibble).

China freely entered into this Faustian bargain. Yet it wouldn’t have been possible had the Western world not outsourced its own industrial activities, creating a planet divided, as Pitron memorably describes it, “between the dirty and those who pretend to be clean”.

The West’s comeuppance is at hand, as its manufacturers, starved of rare metals, must take their technologies to China. It should have seen how its reliance on Chinese raw materials would quickly morph into a dependence on China for the technologies of the energy and digital transition

•••••

Better that the West attains some shred of supply security by mining some of its own land, says Pitron. At least there consumers can fight (and pay) for cleaner processes. Nothing will change if we don’t experience “the full cost of attaining our standard of happiness”, he says.

Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle claims it withheld tips from delivery workers

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-will-pay-617-million-settle-claims-withheld-tips-delivery-worke-rcna244?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR21FWTe4RTSrmx16_AkYo3Ij6s-zkVgpaXr-WS6vkMl7OHiF-J9BUEfzbA

Feb. 2, 2021, 12:02 PM EST
By Annie Palmer, CNBC

Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that it failed to pay Flex delivery drivers the full amount of tips received from customers.

The commission voted 4-0 in favor of the settlement, which was announced Tuesday. In the complaint, the FTC alleges that Amazon in 2016 shifted from paying drivers the promised rate of $18 to $25 per hour, plus tips, to paying drivers a lower hourly rate.

Amazon “intentionally failed” to notify drivers of this change and used the tips to make up the difference between the promised rate and the new lower hourly rate, according to the FTC.

“Rather than passing along 100% of customers’ tips to drivers, as it had promised to do, Amazon used the money itself,” said Daniel Kaufman, acting director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement. “Our action today returns to drivers the tens of millions of dollars in tips that Amazon misappropriated, and requires Amazon to get drivers’ permission before changing its treatment of tips in the future.”

•••••

The settlement comes as on-demand delivery services DoorDash and Instacart have also attracted public scrutiny for their tipping practices.

Last November, DoorDash reached a $2.5 million settlement with the attorney general of the District of Columbia over claims it misled consumers and pocketed workers’ tips. Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine announced charges against DoorDash after his office found the company used customers’ tips to offset the minimum payment owed to workers. DoorDash said in 2019 it had changed its tipping model.

Similarly, Racine in August of last year filed a lawsuit against Instacart, claiming the company deceived customers into thinking an optional service fee would be collected as a tip for workers and pocketed it for itself instead.

Mysterious California sea lion deaths linked to toxic synthetic chemicals

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/01/california-sea-lion-deaths-cancer-toxic-chemicals

 

Mon 1 Feb 2021 18.10

Sea lions in California had been dying of a mysterious cancer for decades. Now, scientists say they have finally uncovered the likely cause: toxic chemicals from industrial trash, pesticides and oil refinery waste.

A team of mammal pathologists, virologists, chemists and geneticists have concluded that sea lions with higher concentrations of DDT, PCBs and other chemicals in their blubber are more prone to cancer triggered by a herpes virus.

The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, are the result of 20 years of research, gleaned from tissue samples collected from 394 sea lions.

“[Sea lions are] predisposed to cancer by these high levels of legacy compounds that are still in the environment,” Frances Gulland, a University of California, Davis, researcher who studied the animals for decades at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, told the Los Angeles Times.

•••••

While the findings begin to answer longstanding questions about what has been plaguing sea lions off California’s coast, it also raises concerns about the effects of ocean pollution on other mammals, including humans.

•••••

The manmade threats to sea lions are multifold. From 2013 to 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) flagged what it called an “unusual mortality event” after thousands of severely emaciated sea lion pups and juveniles were stranded along the central and southern California coast. The agency ultimately concluded that a marine heatwave, probably exacerbated by global warming, drove away the anchovies, squid and shellfish that the sea lions ate.

Alarming COVID variants show vital role of genomic surveillance

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00065-4

15 January 2021
David Cyranoski

2021 is shaping up to be the year of COVID-19 variants. In the past two months, scientists have identified several fast-spreading variants that have prompted government restrictions in many countries — and new variants are being detected more frequently.

The pandemic has ushered in an era of genomic surveillance in which scientists are tracking genomic changes to a virus at a speed and scale never seen before. But surveillance is patchy globally, particularly in the United States, which has the world’s largest COVID-19 outbreak, and in many low- and middle-income countries. Scientists warn that worrying variants are probably spreading undetected in these regions.

•••••

The United States has been less successful in getting genomic epidemiology up and running — despite the May launch of a programme called SPHERES, which enlisted national and local health laboratories, private companies and academic institutions to deliver genomic sequences to public-health response teams.

The effort has not evolved into a national system, and individual academic laboratories do most sequencing rather than the country’s large genomic centres, says Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

As a result, genomic coverage overall is low. The number of SARS-CoV-2 genomes that the United States has shared on GISAID is less than 0.3% of its total number of COVID-19 infections. That compares with nearly 5% for the United Kingdom, 12% for Denmark, and almost 60% for Australia (see ‘Global surveillance’). A new variant in the United States would probably be detected quickly in certain states that have lots of active sequencing labs, such as New York and Washington, but would take a while in places that don’t, says Grubaugh. This is a problem because the more a virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to change.

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The situation could improve with incoming US president Joseph Biden, says Grubaugh. “I am hopeful that the new administration will tap into the expertise within SPHERES to help develop a national system,” he says.

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